


Flecks of Gray

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crack, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, when your two options are your hand and your mortal enemy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 21:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15737859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: After Harry's second encounter with Voldemort, Lily's protection goes haywire, turning everyone Harry touches to ash. It's very inconvenient.





	Flecks of Gray

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by anonymous on tumblr.

Harry falls unconscious to the sound of Quirrell’s screams as the professor’s skin blisters, swells, and turns to ash under Harry’s grip. Waking up anywhere would be better than being in that third floor corridor with a professor he’d underestimated and a Dark Lord who wants him dead, so the only thing Harry feels when he opens his eyes in the hospital wing is relief. He’s alright. He made it out. And yet when he looks to his right, he finds Dumbledore sitting in a pink and green striped armchair with a somber expression on his face. 

Dumbledore’s expression is not for the destruction of the stone or the death of Quirrell. It’s not even for the fact that Voldemort got away. It is for Harry, whose life has been changed in a way he never could have expected. 

"There were complications with your mother's powerful protection," Dumbledore tells him. Before today, Harry hadn’t even known his mother’s sacrifice had left a lasting effect on his magic. "It seems that your encounter with Voldemort triggered the protection in an unforseen way. Instead of protecting you from only him, it now sees an enemy in everyone and reacts to the touch of anyone by turning them to ash. I’m sorry to say that neither myself nor Madam Pomfrey have been able to alter something so deeply entrenched in your magic.”

"I could kill someone just by touching them?" Harry asks, horrified. He remembers Quirrell’s face as he screamed, the man’s eyes burning in Harry’s memory. 

To Harry’s surprised relief, Dumbledore shakes his head. "It does lash out by turning anyone whose skin touches yours to ash, but it does not kill them. Their state is not permanent. It can be fixed with a spell that requires a great deal of power to perform. You must be careful with yourself, but please do not blame yourself if someone gets hurt. I will be able to help you return them to their prior state safe and sound, if a little dusty."

 

*

At the leaving feast, Dumbledore announces the true winners of the house cup, and the great hall erupts into Gryffindor colors. It is something the whole house has been striving toward all year, but now Harry does not particularly care. A man is dead and a Dark Lord is on the loose and there is more power in his two hands that Harry doesn't know what to do with. He's tired despite all the sleep he got in the hospital wing. Tired and shaken.

Draco Malfoy, unfortunately, is not of the same mind. He tracks Harry and his friends down after the feast, Crabbe and Goyle cornering them from both sides in an empty hallway. 

“Where do you think you’re going, Potter?” Malfoy sneers. After Voldemort, he looks about as intimidating as a wet cat. "You think you could just steal Slytherin's house cup like that and--"

“I do think so, yeah,” Harry replies, rolling his eyes. Malfoy is close enough to touch and— Harry has an idea, quite a stupid one, but he doesn’t want the first person he accidentally touches to be someone he likes. What if Dumbledore is wrong and they can’t be brought back from ash? Quirrell is dead after all. 

And Malfoy is, well, Malfoy.

He's not expendable--Harry wouldn't go that far, he's not that cruel--but he's not important the way Ron and Hermione are. Harry taps him on the forehead and watches his schoolyard rival turn to ash. It shouldn't feel so satisfying to walk over the pile of ash on the floor.

Behind him, Hermione sighs. “Harry! You can’t just take advantage of your curse like that.”

“This is wicked,” Ron says contentedly. “Can you do Percy next?”

Malfoy stops being as much of a problem after that, which in retrospect is a terrible thing for Harry to realize. It's hard to decide to deal with one's problem like a mature individual when one can just turn them to ash instead.

 

*

 

Dumbledore returns Harry to the Dursleys personally, citing a wish to explain the situation to them properly and answer any questions that might arise. Harry doesn't voice any complaints.

"Can I do a demonstration for them?" Harry asks as the five of them sit at the Dursleys dinner table. "Just so that they understand? I don't want them to worry."

"Of course," Dumbledore agrees.

Petunia, who sits closest to Harry, begins to frantically disagree. But Harry's already reaching out to take her hand. It crumples beneath his fingers, warm skin turning to ash. Beside him, Vernon and Dudley are pale-faced and unusually silent.

"But not to worry, this won't be a problem," Dumbledore cheerfully says. With a wave of his wand, Petunia is back to normal. She's only shaking a little. "The curse only initiates through skin-to-skin contact, so you will simply have to be careful. If an accidental touch does occur, Harry is too young to perform the spell, but he will be able to contact me via owl and I will personally release you from the curse."

When Dumbledore leaves, Harry shuts the front door and smiles. "Don't worry, Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, Dudley. I'll be very careful."

 

*

 

Harry's pretty sure he's going to develop an allergic reaction to ash one of these days. The basilisk leaves him covered in it, coughing as he makes his way out of the chamber.

 

*

 

In the Shrieking Shack, Harry punches Pettigrew in the face. The man turns to ash and Harry considers just sweeping into the cracks between the floorboards instead of collecting them in his pocket, but Sirius needs proof of his innocence. And Dumbledore would be disappointed with him.

When Remus starts to panic about shifting, Harry lightly taps him on the hand and levitates his ashes into his other pocket.

"That's amazing and terrifying at the same time," Sirius says as Harry explains his curse.

Harry shrugs. "Yeah, I guess."

It's good for dealing with people he doesn't like, but it's been a long time since he's been able to get a hug.

 

*

 

"I have complaints," Karkaroff says, looking at the second Hogwarts champion with horror. "We can't allow our students to participate at such a blatant disadvantage."

Harry sighs. First quidditch, now the tournament. Isn't anyone going to shut up about his curse?

 

*

 

"You're kidding me," Harry says when he punches Voldemort instead of dueling him properly. He's gotten rather used to punching people. It's a good stress relief. But unlike everyone else, Voldemort doesn't collapse into ash. Harry doesn't know for sure, but it probably has something to do with the fact that the jerk stole some of Harry's blood for his new body.

He wonders if that makes them related now.

Or if Voldemort can turn people to ash now, too.

Voldemort laughs, high-pitched and unnerving. "You see, Potter? You will never use your skill against me again. I can touch you now."

 

*

 

_I can touch you now._

Dammit.

 

*

 

"So do you ever get curious?" Ron asks in the Gryffindor dorm. "About, y'know..."

"About what?" Harry asks, looking up from his book. He's sprawled out on his bed, lazily reading while Ron prepares for quidditch tryouts.

"Snogging. Sex. That sort of thing."

"I funnel my sexual frustration into my schoolwork," Harry replies.

"Is that why Hermione's so angry all the time now?"

Harry gives him an unamused look. "One word: Lavender."

Of course Harry thinks about it. It would be impossible not to.

He's a teenage boy.

And as time passes, Harry has to keep deciding between abstract concepts like honor and righteousness and what his parents would've wanted, and the pull of his hormones.

Frankly, Dumbledore should've worked harder to fix Lily's protection if he didn't want Harry to grab Voldemort and apparate them off of the battlefield and into a bedroom. Voldemort isn't conventionally attractive, but Harry's writhing mess of sexual frustration has begun to find the only person he can touch pretty hot.

 

*

 

"Potter, if you insist on turning my followers to ash, at least turn them back afterward."

Harry shrugs and kicks at the pile of ash that used to be Bellatrix. Honestly, Voldemort's followers just have to learn not to interrupt him while he's visiting. "I don't know the spell."

"That is a blatant lie."

"She can wait until we finish?"

"Better."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/).


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